My Nonprofit Reviews

serena09

When I was asked to write this review for Humanity Road, I felt flattered: working for this organisation is just like being part of a big family. As in a family, you may experience times when you can dedicate less energy to the other members. Nonetheless this is understood and fully accepted, and everyone maintains a welcoming attitude. This is so important for a volunteers-based organisation in which members can be, from time to time, more or less available.

As in a family, one can always learn from working with others and learning opportunities are offered on a regular basis. Humanity Road strives to maintain high levels of engagement through regular internal drills which also offer the opportunity for volunteers to practice and refresh their ability to monitor, select, verify and analyse information. Training is another critical component of the volunteers’ engagement: they consist of online trainings which sometimes are delivered on an ad-hoc and one-to-one basis to adapt to the specific availability and needs of a volunteer. Through this training, one can learn soft skills such as how to use internal communication systems, how to work collaboratively with others. In addition to this, the volunteer learns how to apply the tips to monitor information, geolocate data and combine information from multiple sources.In doing so, Humanity Road make sure that its volunteers have always the knowledge and skills and feel comfortable to work in a fast-paced environment during response to disasters.

As for my personal experience, the work done with Humanity Road has helped a lot with my career progression. Having a PhD in Disaster Risk Reduction, I was keen on applying the theoretical knowledge gained from my studies into real disaster scenarios. Working at Humanity Road gave me the practical skills that helped to secure the position as Associate Researcher at a consultancy company specialised on examining social and legal aspects associated with disaster and security management. Also, I am soon due to start a traineeship at the Disaster Risk Management Unit of the European Commission, working on analysing crises of various nature through open source intelligence (OSINT). Despite the many commitments of my personal and professional life, I hope to be able to continue to collaborate with Humanity Road for a long time.